Week 1 at CCBH

We have just begun our second week here at the Cuyahoga County Board of Health (CCBH) and I realize that there is so much to do and see here! Last Monday was our orientation day where several staff members working in different areas came to talk to us about what they do. We heard about the Help Me Grow program and learned about home visiting nurses and what they do. We learned about BCMH which is the Bureau for Children with Medical Handicaps.

Our coordinator, Sandi, had us meet with several different staff members afterwards and set up dates to shadow them. Throughout  our time at CCBH, we will get to work in the Family Planning clinic, inspect restaurants with the sanitarians, go on newborn home visits, and observe in the immunization clinic. The big project Sandi would like us to do is community outreach for the new family planning clinic which we will get to work in as well. We will be running a kiosk at the Tri-C western campus as well as distributing flyers, cards, etc in the areas surrounding the clinic. We are going to try to target areas where teens and people ages 18-25 hang out because this is a high risk population. The clinic is run through grant money and needs to increase the amount of patients in attendance in order to keep receiving grant money.

On Thursday, I went on my first home visit to check up on a week old newborn who's mother was very low income. The nurse and I drove down to a house in East Cleveland where we met the mother and her week old newborn. When I first walked into the house, I couldn't help but notice how extremely empty it was. There was not even any furniture which was an eye-opener for me. This family clearly did not have much money to begin with and I could imagine how the expenses of the baby could make things very difficult.

The nurse began the visit by confirming that the the patient's info in the computer was correct and asking the mother some additional questions. She got the pulse, BP, and temperature of the mother right away. She then gave the mother a few surveys to fill out including a post-partum depression risk assessment. While the mother was busy filling out paperwork, I watched the nurse do a full assessment on the baby. After that, she tallied up the score for the depression assessment and went over several useful papers that were provided to the mother. The mother actually told us that she lays the baby on her stomach! We took the opportunity to educate her about the risk for SIDS and emphasized the importance of laying the baby on her back to sleep.

So far, we have been brainstorming ideas for our community outreach and planning observation days with different departments. This Wednesday, Abby, Hannah, Mary Clare and I will be going out with the sanitarians to inspect restaurants in the county. After just a week, I can't believe how much the board of health does. I had no idea there were so many different community needs being handled here!

~Jill Belsan~